Elastomeric membrane contact switches have become widely used in many applications in the electronics industry. Such switches have been used individually to control switching functions on electronic instruments such as stereo equipment or laboratory recorders or monitors, and have been molded into grid-like arrays of side-by-side switches to provide keypads for calculators, adding machines or the like. In many of these applications, it is desirable to provide a double acting switch which is capable of initiating or controlling two electrical states. To this end, it is necessary that the switch have a tactile feel wherein initiation of the first or second states is readily perceptible to the user.
The present invention provides a contact key switch device which provides a noticeable tactile feel when initiating a switch activation state and which may be configured to function as a single action switch or a double action switch.